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New York Giants Will Hold 2013 Training Camp at Timex Performance Center

January 4th, 2013 at 3:35 PM By Paul Tierney

The New York Giants will hold their 2013 training camp at the Timex Performance Center, opting not to return to Albany for just the second time in the last 18 seasons. Giants training camp has consistently been one of the NFL's most attended preseason events, with attendance nearing 50,000 fans each summer. However, this time, it appears as if the location change will be permanent.

However, the new collective bargaining agreement may be more to blame for the change rather than the accommodations at UAlbany.Without any more two-a-day practices, the Giants probably don't see a reason to travel all the way upstate when they could just stay at their state of the art practice facilities in East Rutherford. Not only does it save the team the trouble of transporting all the necessary equipment and staff to UAlbany, but it eliminates the need for multi-million dollar athletes to deal with less than ideal living conditions. Team owners John Mara and Steve Tisch released a joint-statement regarding the change.

“The University at Albany and the Capital Region have been great hosts for us during our training camps,” Giants co-owners John Mara and Steve Tisch said. “UAlbany truly has been the summer home of the Giants. We are grateful to Mayor (Jerry) Jennings and to (UA Athletic Director) Dr. (Lee) McElroy and his staff in the athletic department for making us feel welcome and providing the resources we needed to prepare for the season.

"We are fortunate to have a facility in the Timex Performance Center that allows us to hold training camp here. We have told Mayor Jennings and Dr. McElroy that we will evaluate our training camp situation on an ongoing basis and certainly would not rule out a return to Albany in the future if it makes sense for both parties.”

The Giants have been hit hard by injuries in recent training camps. Although the living quarters at UAlbany were in no way attempting to replicate a luxury hotel, one can not rule out the possibility that the environment contributed to the onslaught of serious injures players have sustained in recent years. It's a sad day for fans that grew up attending Giants training camp every summer, but it's a change that had to be made to adapt to the new rules of today's NFL.

one of the first orders of business this off-season ought to be getting Jim Haslett a head coaching gig somewhere outside of Washington over the past 2 seasons the Giants are 1-3 against the skins, and barely won the one game they did win at that for all the hoopla over RGIII and Albert Morris (both richly deserved), it was our inability to score against Haslett’s defense that has sunk us over these past 2 seasons

I don’t love everything this staff does, but the reality of those rings cannot be denied. You can come up with any number of complaints about what they don’t do to your liking. You cannot deny the two trophies sitting there. Every fan base, every GM, every owner, and every player, would happily take the bad times (or in the case of the Coughlin Giants, “mediocre” times because there have been no real bad times) along with those two championships. That’s the essential truth, and every one of us should know that.

I don’t have contempt for those who just don’t want to admit that, and I do not deny that things have happened that make you scratch your head. But given appropriate perspective none of us should have any REAL complaint about this team during the Coughlin/Manning Era. It has been a great, if sometimes frustrating, ride and while many other fans have experienced the frustration, they haven’t found the pot ‘o gold at the end of the rainbow. We have, TWICE. Any long-time fan should be filled with pleasure about this. I view it as payback for the long, dark, night we went through for two decades. And a great ride it has been.

I’m with you on that. This team has been 9-7 for two straight seasons now, and we were incredibly fortunate to have made the playoffs last season. We could just as easily be sitting here right now saying that the Coughlin (or whoever would have replaced him)-Manning Giants have not made the playoffs in 4 consecutive seasons. I’ll take the Giants last six seasons over any other teams six seasons in the NFL, but this team has some things it needs to fix if they want to become perennial title contenders.

There’s not a single team in the NFL that wouldn’t trade places over the last 6 seasons with the Giants.

But I still stand by my rant in the last post that the regular season standings over the past 6 years say more about what sort of team they are on a whole. A good, not great team, with a barely above average record. They just happened to make some serious noise 2 of the 3 times they did make the playoffs during that span.

I hear you and of course those 2 super bowls were great on so many levels; especially the first 1

but the reason I keep coming back is that I don’t think those supes were really the product of great coaching there is too much bad football that is sandwiched around them I won’t go so far as to say those championships were the product of luck, but I do think they were the exception and as I look forward, I don’t see us necessarily returning to the playoffs, let alone the championship game any time soon we are just forever a .500-ish team, losing in mind-numbing ways; collapsing at the end of every season; turning in too many games where we simply don’t show with everything on the line

maybe a new coach wouldn’t do any better but I’d like to find out as it is, I am almost certain I know what is coming next year: 6-2, followed by…..

My theory … succinctly put … is that by mid-season or so the rest of the league figures us out … devises plans to stop us … and that we’re slow to counter those plans. It takes us a month or so (November) before we get back on track.

Fan55: I think your missing the point: everyone as you just so nicely put it gets just how special those two ring years were. One wonders if a Pats fan would trade all those play-off game years in a row for those 2 rings? But, I think its more than fair to point a finger at TC as the head coach for the other years where we missed the dance. Thats the big issue, not failing in the play-offs but “missing” the play-offs with teams that seem for the most part as talented as those that have a ring. Isn’t that the deep frustration for the NYG fan to never know what could have been beyond the 2 we got because just like this year we screwed up late and missed the play-offs. Even a step further to be truly upset that even in those 2 Super Bowl years just how close we were to missing the play-offs in those years. People mentioned just a few plays this year but keep in mind that the first SuperBowl run never happens without Bradshaw’s run in a blizzard and last year take your pick…Romo overthrow or Cruz TD. This team has epic failures down the stretch and you can find them every year including the superbowl run years. My suggestion to the staff and TC is to put some serious focus on what I think seperates us from the Pats and other teams that had great play-off strectches. That is quite simply they “PROTECT THEIR OWN HOUSE”!! For an elite team our “home record” is embarrasingly bad. I did the numbers early this year in a blog here and we were at like 55% home record versus the Pats, Steelers and Ravens way above 80%. I even will put the fans on the hook for some of the home issues and maybe they should spend less time in the “sushi bar” and more outside in their seat making the place shake with intimidation. I think a wild Seattle like atmosphere would go a long way in making us 6-2 or 7-1 at home, which would be diffucult to mess up the season especially with a QB who plays so well on the road.

a bit tongue in cheek by me but lets face the real issue that they get to the “show” every single year. Yea, i know the AFC east is bad but they get the job done and dont ever stumble. And what seperates them the most from our record…its how they play at HOME. I think they have under 5 losses at home over the last 5-6 years.

The Patriots are impressive indeed. i do admire them from a far and wish our Giants could be as mentally tough as the Pats throughout the regular season. Nothing seems to rattle them, they plug holes from injuries, and their game plans are flawless and very well executed. There’s a lot to really like about the Pats.

With all that said, they came up short to the Giants in 2 of the most important meetings the 2 teams will ever have.

in ’07 they were the more talented team, but the Giants flat out wanted the game more, and physically took it from the Pats. I hate hearing lucky superbowl re: Tyree’s catch. That’s stupid. The giants had a lot of bad breaks in that game as well and found a way to beat an undefeated and very good team.

In ’11 2 great teams took the field and Giants simply made more plays and won the game.

In both superbowls the Giants were the far more physical team. In my mind those are 2 of the most impressive superbowl wins ever. The Giants TOOK both those games, they were not blown by NE in any way. No Giants fan should ever gloss over those 2 wins, and long to be more like NE.

In a division with 3 of the most valuable franchises in all of sports, its hard to do much better than 3-3. That means 6-4 versus the rest of the NFL nets you 9-7. The reality is that a team in the NFL with double digit wins more than likely has at least 1 but probably 2 terrible teams within the division and a very soft schedule. I know there are exceptions but for the most part it holds. And I think that is more often than not, to their detriment. When you have 3 teams in a division with legitimate playoff aspirations, its hard to win more than 10 games. And while it weighs on our record I think one of the most underrated aspects of last years run was that there wasn’t a team after Atl that we hadn’t seen once before. The schedules we played over the last 2 years have been absolutely brutal. Last year that schedule galvanized us. This year it wore us down. The point is I don’t really look at it as we are consistently at 9-7 but that we are playing brutal schedules. Sometimes its the NFL gods scheduling us with Bal, Pit, Atl, GB NO SF and Cinci. Throw in flexing the games so you never know when you are playing and the biggest hurricane of the last 100 years and I will take 9-7, no complaints. Was it enough to get in the playoffs? nope but next year will be easier. If you go back to 2000 the Giants are in the top 10 for wins by a franchise, I’ll take that. Is it dominant? no but in a division with owners throwing money at their teams it might be the best we can hope for.